


Forget About

by solipsist



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: AU, Angst, implied relationship but not realllyyyyy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solipsist/pseuds/solipsist
Summary: its my special interest and i get to project my mental illness onto waylon-Rick wants nothing more than to smack the most basic level of self-preservation into this altruistic idiot. Let this can of worms break, let the worms slither into darkness. How can Waylon care? How does he still care? Who tells him he should disregard his own survival to help someone?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Forget About

There was a time when Rick could pretend Waylon Park was perfectly normal. There was a time he could convince himself Waylon did it out of free will, not out of submissive fear.

Does it matter now? Should it matter now, now that Rick is sick to his stomach? Does it matter when there’s some alien emotion calcifying in his stomach? Guilt and worry? Guilt and worry for a man who brought it upon himself time and time again?

_ No  _ \- that growing thing inside says -  _ he didn’t bring it on himself. _

Does it matter now?

That growing thing inside says - _yes_.

It runs and freezes like mineral deposits in rock, “Rick! … oh my God! Your arm! Wait here, okay? I think I saw a first aid kit in a room somewhere. Wait here!”

It’s like getting decked in the face. It hurts, it more than all of it combined, and another rush twists around the lines and chunks of guilt. Everything Richard Trager had subjected others to and what he had been subjected to himself; it’s a breath of fresh air to see his face and it’s going to make Rick break down and cry on the floor. 

Not one bit, despite everything, this ray of sunshine shines through. This remnant of something he took for granted, how unfathomably stupid he was to take it for granted. Not one bit, despite everything, Waylon is the exact same.

And this awful silence permeates everything, shifting the room into the coldest place in the universe. How does Waylon avoid the painfully obvious? How can Waylon idly talk about the beauty of tonight’s full moon? How can he think of the ducks in the thunderstorm? Blood covers Waylon. Dirt streaks on his face are broken with tears. Before recognizing Trager, Waylon had raised a crowbar. Something lies in wait down in the men’s ward.

Wrap up the open wound. 

Chastise Rick for leaving it unattended. (You’re a doctor! Don’t you know leaving it out there is bad! You could get an infection!)

Hold it tight with the world’s lamest splint.

“Okay - y - y. That should do it. I think. I can’t stay here long. I heard,” a brief click of Waylon’s tongue, “Eddie got out. I think.”  And if Eddie listened to Waylon through glass walls and iron bars, then there’s a hope he’ll listen now through the throes of total freedom and the fight to survive.

“Stay safe, okay?”

Waylon has a smile on. It speaks nothing of kindness and sunshine.  _ Please stay safe, Rick. I can’t let more people get hurt from my inaction. Please.  _

As far back as Rick can remember, there never was a time he had been stunned into silence. Leave it to Waylon to put him at a legitimate loss for words. Rick has heard the way a dog cries when you crush its brains in with a boot. That didn’t silence him. Looking at himself in the mirror after arrest never left him with nothing to say. 

But kindness did. 

Is it kindness? Is kindness done out of fear or love? Both? Does it matter as long as the action puts good into someone’s world?

Rick wants nothing more than to smack the most basic level of self-preservation into this altruistic idiot. There’s no desire to even ask Waylon why he’s doing this. The can of worms stay closed - he’s not the one to offer a shoulder for Waylon to cry on. 

Because it’s his fault too, isn’t it?

Waylon’s selfless bullshit, still caring.

How can he care? How does he still care? After everything, how can anyone manage that?

But he is. Because it’s Rick’s fault too. It’s his fault Waylon is here with him, patting his arm. It’s his fault Waylon had ever heard the name Murkoff. Rick is no special exception because he never laid a hand on Waylon. 

Waylon, Waylon and that annoying streak that won’t stop giving a shit. Giving a shit about everyone but himself, not himself, never himself. Waylon is aware that Rick could stab him in the neck with a pair of scissors and end everything now. But he doesn’t care about that. Why doesn’t he care about that? Who broke him like this? Was it Rick? Jeremy? Was Waylon fragmented before either one entered the picture?

It’s seeping into Rick’s face. It’s mutating into disgust. It’s hitting away Waylon’s arm and moving away. 

“Someone has to.”

It’s pathetic hearing it from Waylon. He can be barely called a man. There is no drive to survive, there is no will to fight. Is he even alive? This grand reason is laughable. Did Waylon find some reward in earning love and affection from those who scorn him? What pleasure is found in taking it from whoever gives it to him? There is no secret love in Jeremy Blaire, there is no secret softness in Eddie. What is seen by the observer is exactly it. There is no room for development, there’s a fine nothingness inside men that Waylon fights to form into something.

There has got to been some therapist who told Waylon that was a pretty bad idea. 

Who are you, Waylon Park, but someone that sacrifices?

What is there to say to that?

_ For the love of god, Waylon, who the fuck put it in your head that you have to carry the goddamn weight of everyone else's combined problems?  
_ _ Have you ever made a choice that was good for you? Just you? Nobody else, just you? Even once in your life? _

“Get out of here.”

“What? Right now?”

“You have sixty seconds to get the fuck out of here.”

That unbearable sunshine breaks. And here is Waylon as he truly is - miserable. Weepy. Unable to get it through his thick skull.

“Get… out of here. Go on.”

Closer and closer, Rick drags himself, inches from Waylon’s teary eyes.

“Nobody wants you here. I don’t want you here, retard.”

Fat tears fall now.

“Fuck you!”

A sob, Waylon staggers back, a hand protecting his tears from judgement. The last goodness in Rick’s life left with the door slammed shut.

He’s been thrown to the wolves now. 

Rick can’t take comfort knowing he wasn’t the one to tear Waylon apart. 


End file.
